Ravencoin AMA Recap

On Tuesday, October 15th we have held a community AMA session with Tron Black – the lead developer of Ravencoin. Here you can read the recap of everything we have discussed during the session! Don’t forget that you can always create a Ravencoin wallet on Guarda.

GUARDA: We are here with @RavenTron – lead developer of Ravencoin. Go for it and ask your questions, we have quite some time!

Tron Black:
Hi everyone! I’m the lead dev for Ravencoin. Happy to answer any questions you might have about RVN (the crypto-currency), or Ravencoin Assets (the protocol asset layer), or anything else.

Question: What steps, to expand the Raven user community, in the near future?

Tron Black:
The Ravencoin community grows organically. There is no marketing dept. and it relies on the community, word-of-mouth, meetups, great projects, etc. for others to become aware of the project.

Question: How to start using branch code to make new tokens, on the Raven blockchain, for a newbie like me?

Tron Black:
You can make your own token with the qt wallet. You just need 500 RVN. Choose a name, qty, and divisibility and hit [Issue]

Question: At what limit, the network will slow down from accumulated user transactions?

Tron Black:
It runs at about 20x the speed of bitcoin. The network is lightly used now, and will adapt the same way Bitcoin does by increasing fees as needed.

Question: I actually wanted to ask one about your personal story a little – how did you start with Ravencoin? RVN is quite known for the community, after all.

Tron Black:
The original idea was Bruce Fenton’s. He presented the idea in mid-2017. I found out about it when Bruce needed some devs to help out and Patrick Byrne offered to let some of us work on the project.

Question: Pretty cool! So, it’s been a while already. What were the last 2 years like, more or less?

Tron Black:
RVN launched on Bitcoin’s ninth birthday (Jan 3rd, 2018) and has been going strong ever since. It’s been a rollercoaster ride. The initial phase was just getting RVN out there. Then the work began for asset issuance and transfer.

Those were some big changes, and we have some amazing developers on it, and a ton of help from around the world.

Question: How many contributors does Ravencoin have, more or less?

Tron Black:
Thousands if you count people adding code, translating, making stickers, creating memes, starting meetups, etc. Contributions come in all forms.

Question: Hi @RavenTron! In a Medium article by you, you mentioned that Ravencoin is good for traceability than ERC-20 based token, would like to know more about it. Like how Ravencoin solves the problem of traceability here?

Tron Black:
Ravencoin works like Bitcoin. The RVN is only ever issued to miners. There was never an ICO, pre-mine, or dev set-aside. Then, just like Bitcoin, the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Outputs) are used as inputs for transactions and create new UTXOs. That is traceable.
The Ravencoin assets work the same way, except the first UTXO is the issuance (by anyone who creates their own asset).
The transaction speed is 10x that of Bitcoin.

There was recently a change in the mining algo, but that was because we want to keep the coin as “the people’s coin” so we changed the algo to stop ASICs (specialized hardware that can centralize the network).

Question: Transaction speed becomes the main point of crypto users, with a small fee. Will there be a change in the hash code later?

Tron Black:
The network is a long way from being crowded. Anyone can create tokens today.

Question:So we’re getting a chain of UTXO’ here?

Tron Black:
It is UTXO based – Yes.

Question: What’s the coolest solution in Ravencoin, in your point of view?

Tron Black:
I would say four things:

1. Assets you can create that can’t be destroyed.
2. Unique named assets – that distinguishes assets created on Ravencoin from ERC-20 tokens.
3. Meta-data stored in IPFS which lets you tell the world what the token is used for.
4. A toolset (Tags and Restricted Assets) that is on testnet now, but when it moves to mainnet will allow for Security Tokens to be compliant when operating on-chain.

Collectively, these capabilities put Ravencoin ahead of most technologies for tokenizing assets. The world just doesn’t know about them yet.

Question: How do you think we could promote tokenization?

Tron Black:
Ideally wallets like Guarda Wallet would support assets, asset creation, and potentially peer-to-peer asset trading.

We really appreciate Guarda Wallet adding RVN to their collection of crypto-currencies.

I did an AMA for ChangeNOW.io yesterday and it is my understanding the Guarda Wallet works with СhangeNow.

Question: I would like to know a little more about meta-data stored in IPFS.

Tron Black:
When you create an asset, you can include an IPFS hash. If you’re not familiar with IPFS, it is Interplanetary File System, and you upload a file, and it gives you back a 47 character hash. This hash gets connected to your token when you issue it (optional). The file could be a PDF, a movie, or any other type of file describing your asset. The asset explorer will let you see the file that goes with a token/asset.

Best to show examples:
https://ravencoin.asset-explorer.net/

After our next update (before the end of the year), then every transaction can include an IPFS hash. This lets people use Ravencoin for supply-chain, invoices, storing cost basis, and all kinds of unexplored possibilities.

The link between IPFS and the immutable IPFS hash stored on-chain has been a super powerful concept, and we’re extending it.

Ravenland.org has tools for playing with IPFS, and even has a RavencoinOS that will sync the chain and keep a copy of all the IPFS files and act as a mini-server on the network. All free.

Works on Raspberry Pi.

RVN is much more than just a clone like LTC. The RVN is burned when assets are created, so that reduces the RVN supply as the usage of the Ravencoin platform increases.

Question: What about the next update?

Tron Black:
It is on testnet now. We’re going to activate it using BIP9 which is a safe activation method for proof-of-work coins. We’d like to start this activation on November 5th, but we want to make sure it is safe so we have a lot of testing to do, and we will run a bounty program on it.

Question: Some details on the bounty programme?

Tron Black:
If you want to play with the new capabilities on Testnet, use the Testnet7 folder from here:
https://raven-nightly-builds.ravencoin.org/

The bounty program will pay anyone (in RVN) for finding consensus level bugs (which are critical).
The details will be in our Telegram, Discord, and tweeted out @Ravencoin and @tronblack when it is launched.

If you want to learn more about Ravencoin, try ravencoin.org, and https://medium.com/@tronblack
This is also a great source of information — for the more technical.

https://raven.wiki/wiki/Ravencoin_Wiki

Question: Also could I ask you about the future? Say half a year?

Tron Black:
Sure. The testnet to mainnet activation is a big shift. This adds so many new capabilities. We also want to add Rewards. Rewards let you pay your token holders in RVN with just one click.

So, let’s say you’ve legally issued a token that represents a share of your company, and your company has earnings of $1,000,000. You can turn that into RVN, and send it to your shareholders.

This is technically very doable and represents an amazing capability, but can be tricky to do legally in the US, but I expect it will be used in other jurisdictions with a lighter touch.

We also want to help other companies using the Ravencoin Asset platform with additional 2nd layer tools – in Node, javascript, etc. to interact with the Ravencoin nodes.

Question: This last point is pretty cool. Is it already in development?

Tron Black:
Yes, it is in development by a community member.

Question: What will the vector for dev be like for these future half a year, if you are to make general points?

Tron Black:
Fixing any issues that crop up, and adding 2nd layer tools to make it easier for anyone to work with Ravencoin. The feature set for Ravencoin is so far ahead, it will take some time to educate the crypto-community on what is possible.

There is no marketing dept., so this will happen organically through events like this, meetups, podcasts, etc.

The roadmap has a few other items, like making raven work (for an asset) as it does for RVN which will make it easier for wallets, and exchanges to work with user-created assets.

Question: Since Ravencoin is community-driven, anybody can contribute to the development, right?
Does one need to fit certain requirements?

Tron Black:
There are no tests. Anyone can join. You can start as simple as fixing a spelling error – if you find one. You can add features, etc. We will vet the code before pulling it into the main branch to prevent malicious code.

If you want to join the Telegram community, go here: https://t.me/RavencoinDev

Question: So, there’s a core team to monitor it?

Tron Black:
There is. EVERY crypto project has to have someone preventing the code from being turned into a wallet-stealer.
You can copy the code and make a protocol-level compatible client.
The code is fully open source.
There have been a few projects that have spun off of Ravencoin.
None have anywhere near the community support of Ravencoin.

Question: Any of them worth mentioning? Did something really good?

Tron Black:
Pigeoncoin, Ritocoin, and some others. They’ve made their own changes

Question: Are they working together with Ravencoin or doing something totally separate?

Tron Black:
Some of the devs help us out and we’ll help them too. Ravencoin is a friendly community.

But the coins are completely separate.

Question: Are those all tokens on Raven’s blockchain?

Tron Black:
No, they are their own chains. Not sure if they have token capabilities.
The best place to find new projects using Ravencoin is at:
https://ravencoin.asset-explorer.net/

Question: So, one more thing before we have to finish here – what’s the most awesome thing you’d like to share with Guarda community?

Tron Black:
The most awesome part of Ravencoin is community support which now includes Guarda Wallet. Join in, and see what it’s like. Compare it to any other project. Check out youtube for Ravencoin. Try mining it. Play with it. Experiment. This is just the beginning.
Thank you to everyone who participated. Great questions!
Happy to answer any questions. Also, there are some amazing volunteers over in our Telegram that will help you out if you ever get stuck in your exploration.

Signing off for now. Feel free to DM me if you have more questions. KAAAAWWW!
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